My family's favorite sitcoms have been cancelled. (Yay!)

[cjlasky7]

It's the middle of May, and time for the TV high poohbahs to send some of their poorly performing shows to the guillotine. Per usual, there are some flawed but intruiging series that deserved a chance to achieve true greatness, but will never get the chance (RIP, Lucifer). There are others that received a last minute reprieve (booyah, Brooklyn Nine-Nine!).

But I want to talk about a secret joy in my heart today; the happy news that three shows my wife and kid adored--but I couldn't watch anymore--have been sent packing. Let the carnage begin!

1. Kevin Can Wait

A seemingly can't miss sitcom built on the substantial popularity of Kevin James. Dreadfully unfunny from the get-go, unless you enjoy James acting like a clueless jerk for 22 minutes. The characters are completely flat, and the wimpy son-in-law trope is painful to watch. James and the producers killed off the wife after season 1 to bring in his King of Queens co-star Leah Rimini--and the show got WORSE.

The show on right after KCW--Matt LeBlanc's Man with a Plan--is just as clichéd, but actually has funny jokes and a solid ensemble. (And they didn't fridge the wife.)

2. 9JKL

As mildly pleasant and inoffensive as its star and co-creator, Mark Feuerstein, but it evaporates almost as soon as it leaves the screen. A comedy about an adult son dealing with his overbearing mom next door, it has nothing witty or original to add to the topic. The mom and dad are played by Linda Lavin and Elliot Gould, and for awhile I watched, amazed, that these near-legendary performers had nothing better to do with their time.

3. The Last Man on Earth

This cancellation is a mixed blessing, because I thought the pilot episode was phenomenal, with a true tour de force performance by Will Forte. The current ensemble has Forte, Mel Rodriguez, January Jones, Mary Steenbergen and Kristen Schaal, who is my wife in an alternate universe. So how can this show be bad?

Well.... I think it's too crowded. It steers away from the inherent darkness of the premise when it should be leaning into it. Forte's good hearted idiot manchild bit wears you down after awhile. Plotlines meander endlessly, then peter out. And the writing just isn't sharp enough for me to enjoy these characters hanging out together.

(So... I guess that's how.)

The fourth season finale ended with Tandy and his crew meeting a whole bunch of survivors; but I had no confidence that this plot turn would be handled any better than any of the others.

*******

That's 90 minutes of my life I get back! My DVR will be grateful.

Comments

[shadowkat]

LOL!

They are cancelling some interesting things..and saving some interesting ones.

Last Man Standing got saved, CMT dumped it in favor of reality shows, and ABC picked it up again. LOL! It started out I think on ABC, got dumped, and CMT picked it up. That show has almost as many lives as a cat.

The Expanse is the one everyone is really upset about -- it's Syfy. Expensive space opera based on a series of books by JA Corey.

Deception got killed, it's was about a magician who was working with the FBI to clear his brother from a rival illusionists set-up. It had potential, but lackluster casting and writing..

Instinct was saved -- probably because it had Alan Cummings. Because it's a rip-off of Bones and Castle and Elementary.

I'm not that surprised by the list. I would have saved and reworked Decpetion and Lucifer and killed Brooklyn 9-9.

I thought 9KLJ was dead a long time ago? I couldn't make it past the first fifteen minutes...but I'm not a fan of the family style sitcom. (Oh, how I miss the good old days with Fraiser, Cheers, Night Court, News Radio, WKRP, Taxi, Newhart...but alas..gone forever. What we will get is a reboot of Murphy Brown next year...which isn't bad, I guess.)

You should try The Good Place...it's clever.

[cjlasky7]

I'm waiting for Good Place to come back in reruns so I can binge Seasons 1 and 2.

Brooklyn 9-9 is heading from Fox to NBC, a nice bit of network synergy, since it's produced by NBCUniversal. It'll probably be the back half of a sitcom block with another Michael Schur joint.

And hey, 9-9 is still good! "The Box"--basically a three hander with Samberg, Andre Braugher, and guest Sterling K. Brown--was one of the best episodes yet.

[shadowkat]

Not a fan of B-9-9. Only Michael Schur sitcom that I can watch and find enjoyable is The Good Place. Most of his comedy makes me cringe. (I don't like a lot of American comedy -- such as "broad" comedy or "parody" or broad satire for satire's sake, and despise slapstick for the most part. More a fan of the subtle but really smart quirky character comedies of the late 1970s, 1980s and early 90s, such as Taxi, News Radio, WKRP (although that went over board at times), Murphy Brown, MASH, Cheers, Fraiser, Night Court, Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Seinfield, All in the Family (although also made me cringe) first two seasons of Cosby, and the Brit comedies -- Coupling, As Time Goes By. Comedies like Community, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, I Love Lucy, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Roseanne, Will and Grace, Brooklyn 9-9, The Unbreakable Kimmie Schimdt, 30 Rock, Great News, etc...tend to make me cringe in embarrassment and flip the channel quickly. )

[cjlasky7]

I don't see 9-9 as cringe comedy. I think it's a standard workplace sitcom in a police station like Barney Miller (only a bit more broad than BM).

But I get it. Cringe comedy isn't for everybody. You can respond one of two ways: you can feel the awkwardness and tension build up in your body until you laugh as a release, or you switch off and hide under the bed.

I remember that episode of The Office when Jim and Pam went to Michael and Jan's for dinner and they found out much more than they ever wanted to know about Michael's hellish home life. It's weird to laugh so hard while you're curled up in a ball....

[shadowkat]

Like I said...don't like "broad" comedy. If I can see the joke coming from a mile away, I don't find it funny. My sense of humor tends more towards absurdist, dead-pan, and very dry wit. Sardonic.

Slapstick like I Love Lucy and all of Adam Sandler's comedies..doesn't work for me. Also a lot of crude comedy, like The Hangover, and most of Judd Apatow's films don't work for me. I'm turned off.

It has to be subtle or surprising in some way. Such as There's Something About Mary, which is a weird combo. The scene that made me laugh the hardest is the dog getting kicked out the window and ending up with a cast, because it was just absurd and surprising. (I've a dark sense of humor). While the scene that made me cringe was Mary using his sperm as hair cream.

Scatological humor has never worked for me. 90% of American humor doesn't work for me. So, I don't tend to watch sitcoms. The only two that I've watched with any regularity in the last ten years have been Big Bang Theory and the Good Place. Everything else? I roll my eyes and flip channels. I tried Modern Family -- but the interview/doc style got on my nerves, also it's a bit too broad, Life in Pieces -- bored me and too into sex jokes, pretty much all of them fall into the -- sex joke category, which I find boring and repetitive. I tried B-9-9 and I just...it was too over-the-top and I didn't like anyone. That's another main criteria -- I have to like the characters. Blackish - I tried, but it's sort of between Blossom (sappy and message laden) and over the top (Modern Family.)

Arrested Development is one of the few doc/family dramas that worked for me, because surprising and absurdist.

[shadowkat]

I tend to find dramedy more funny - Buffy (many of the one-liners), The Good Wife (political satire), The Avenger's was hilarious in places (because of the dialogue).

But I hate puns. Despise them. It's why Terry Prachett doesn't work for me.

[cjlasky7]

For me, humor comes almost exclusively from character. In stand-up, a well-defined persona can put a top heavy comedic spin on even the slightest material. Chris Rock's socially conscious firebrand, Steve Martin's vaudeville absurdist, even Andrew Dice Clay's outer borough loudmouth packed stadiums because their audiences knew and appreciated the character up on stage.

Let's transfer this to sitcoms (specifically, animation). The Simpsons' core four--Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa--are so beautifully well-defined and specific as characters that you can put them in virtually any situation, any style of comedy, and get laughs. Movie parody? Slapstick? Cringe comedy? Dinner table repartee? Doesn't matter. As long as the writing lets them stay true to themselves, it can work. (Family Guy doesn't work for me because Peter, Lois, and the teens are either too derivative or aren't specific enough as characters for me to care. Only Stewie and Brian really snap.)

Speaking of "core four"--could we ask for a better set of characters for comedy than BUFFY's? I could spend days listing examples of Buffy's SoCal punniness, X/W share-a-brain badinage, Giles' x-treme Britishness, and every combination in between. We laugh because we know them so well, we're drawn into the bit by them, and we're primed to react to the humorous conclusion. (Thank you, Anya.)

Most of my humor comes from character. Not a lot of premise/setup/punchline. If you remember my little comedy playlets for ATPo, the closer I got to the essence of the character, the better the comedy.

Maybe some day, I'll do it with characters of my own.

[shadowkat]

Nope, mine isn't about character or necesssarily situational...although there's something in that I guess. I can't handle a character being humiliated physically. Embarrassment humor causes me to leave the room. A lot of the physical humor on Buffy never worked for me.

Like I said above - I don't like broad humor, humiliation humor, sadistic humor, or cruel humor with very very few exceptions.

Comes from being bullied or the brunt of teasing, probably. (shrugs) I see it? I want to strangle the writer and the person who instigated it. Practical jokes? Irritate me. I get very upset. People have learned not to play them on me -- I don't react well. I feel deep empathy for the person who is the brunt of a joke.

But dry wit, sarcasm, sardonic humor...which you've seen me use online and off -- I find funny. It's not character specific. Has zip to do with building or not building character. Nor is it necessarily situational.

Humor is a subjective deeply personal thing -- I've found. That's why it's so frigging hard. What one person finds hilarious, another might find offensive. (Example? The funniest scene to me in There's Something About Mary is when her dog gets kicked out the window. I know people who would be horrified at that.)

Analyzing a Comedy Scene from Infinity War

[cjlasky7]

Comedy is indeed subjective. (But even I have to admit, the Farrellys could come up with some great sight gags...) I think we both agree that most of the comedy in Infinity Wars worked. (Loved how Thor kept calling Rocket "rabbit"; that was so... Thor.) But I think you'd get an insight on my sense of humor if I break down a scene that I believe "just missed"--the ice cream joke.

When Stark talks about his Ben&Jerry's flavor, Strange immediately snarks that it's "...a bit chalky." For me, it was a little TOO fast, too much of a left turn from his brooding, ascetic mystic image to hit without proper setup. I would have restructured the scene thusly:

[Doc tells Stark he would gladly sacrifice all of their lives to protect the time stone. He then stomps off across the room to consult one of his 2000 pound spell books.

STARK (talking loud enough so Strange can hear him): Well, I thought I was giving up dairy until Ben&Jerry's named a flavor after me.
WONG: Ooh! Stark Raving Hazelnut!
BANNER: I-I liked the bits of cookie dough.
WONG: And the fudge ripple.

[Cut to Strange. He doesn't even look up.]

STRANGE: I thought it was a bit... chalky.

This sets up the reversal a bit better, and gives Cumberbatch a chance to take his time with the line. Timing. Timing is key.

Re: Analyzing a Comedy Scene from Infinity War

[shadowkat]

LOL!

Okay I completely agree with that. And thank you for the example, that clarifies it. I completely missed the whole ice cream joke in the movie -- it was not only too fast, it was hard to follow. I thought, okay, why is it funny that Stark and Banner got ice creams named after them? I didn't get the joke. So much of comedy is perception. Actually everything is perception.

This happened with Last Jedi too, they apparently had a sight gag in there -- that I completely missed, because it was too fast and there was too much going on. And it wasn't quite set up well enough.

So, two things are important here:

1. timing
2. set-up

You have to set up the joke, everyone needs to be in character, and the timing has to be spot on.

Like Thor, who keeps calling Rocket, Rabbit. It works because we know how much that would annoy Rocket, and the fact he puts up with Thor doing it...That's an example of character influencing the joke.

Another example? Xander and Harmony's slap fight, or Spike and Buffy fighting over the rocket launcher, while Wood is rather oblivious to it in the foreground. That's an example of how a sight gag or physical humor can work well. It works best if the audience is laughing with the characters or at a situation. Another one from Buffy?

Spike: I mean I'm not a monster.
Xander: Yes, you are. Vampires are monsters, they make monster movies about them and everything.
Spike: Well you got me there.

(Character + Timing + Dialogue)

I think, for me at any rate, I have to be into the characters or relating to them on some level for it to work.